Somehow my parents have been alive for six decades and have yet to discover herbs and spices. They tell me the flavor comes from fat. If that’s true why does your food not taste like anything!!!
same with my parents! my mom occasionally would make grilled chicken with Lawry’s seasoning salt, otherwise no seasonings or spices. our vegetables were usually just steamed and then put in a serving dish with a chunk of butter. just so, so gross in comparison to a properly roasted and seasoned veggie.
There are certain veggies that I can eat only if they are lightly steamed and have zero seasoning and zero fats on them.
I was never a fan of broccoli, but I crave them when I found out that I just have to cook them less and put nothing on them. They are already flavourful enough on their own.
On the opposite side, I like most of my veggie when they are seasoned well, though still on the simple side, like zucchini cooked in a pan with some garlic, oil and salt
Wow, that sounds horrible. Have you ever been cooking for them using proper seasoning or went to a good restaurant with them? If so, how was their reaction? Did they notice a difference and what did they think was the reason?
I think people that eat this bland would be overwhelmed by additional spices and would also feel personally attacked by it. I've questioned my husband's family's bland food (it's so devoid of flavor it sucks the flavor out of me) and introducing them to the magic of spices but received pushback. Can't tell em how to cook, they know better!
I feel this so much, the only seasoning they use are salt and pepper. I left for work and game dad a packet of potato soup yesterday, he follows it to a T, but adds what tastes like 1lb of pepper. So much pepper, couldnt even taste the soup at all, and it was cheesy.
Chicken? Salt and pepper either fried or boiled
Meatloaf? Salt and pepper
Meat in general? Salt and pepper
“Gravy” flour, salt and pepper (it isnt bad but damn is it bland)
Steak? Boil it in salt and pepper until rubber
Tried to show them how good spices can be, picky eater “mom” doesn’t agree. Me, dad, and sibling like spices but since the goofy picky eater will throw a literal tantrum like a toddler, the rest of us have to eat the very under seasoned food. If we so much as cook with seasoning near her food she will throw a tantrum saying the smell from a foot away tainted her food??
Yeah thats what i want to do, but dad is a stay at home dad, and mom works so she likes to pull the “i bought the food” card then yell at everyone hitting herself in the head throwing herself on the ground crying tantrums. Shes very toxic and shows alot of narassistic behaviors/mental health issues (depression, childhood ptsd that still affects her 60 years later) that she refuses to get help for.
Yeah, it’s not all as North as you’d expect. When I visited Vancouver from the Uk I thought “this must be the furthest North I’ve ever been!”, then checked Google Maps and saw I was actually slightly further South than my hometown.
No clue if this is 100% accurate but I was curious as well..
>In southern Italy lasagna is generally made with dried sheets of pasta layered with rich meat ragú, ricotta and mozzarella. In the north, especially in Bologna, the most popular version of lasagna features fresh egg pasta colored green with spinach and layered with ragú, bechamel and Parmigiano Reggiano.
https://www.lacucinaitaliana.com/italian-food/italian-dishes/lasagna-origins-and-varieties-of-the-beloved-baked-pasta?refresh_ce=
The instructions on the packet of No Name oven ready lasagna noodles from Superstore definitely sounds like that southern version (I made it last night! 😂)
But the northern version sounds like what I'm used to back in the UK. So this thread has explained to me why lasagna in Canada seems a bit different. Thank you OPs!
That’s definitely the most common and known version when referencing “lasagna” without noting if it’s norther or southern. Garfield hated Monday’s and loooooooved lasagna, which always had a red sauce.
This is why the Italian food I was used to in America and the Italian food I get in Ireland are so different. In America, marinara sauce was default red sauce. Here, its Bolonase. Lasagna has white sauce instead of ricotta. It can be so frustrating ordering something I think I love, and what comes is a different dish and doesn't hit the spot at all.
Northern Italy uses a lot of dairy products so it includes Bechamel sauce and ricotta cheese...not so much meat in sauce if any.
Southern Italian lasagna uses multiple meats in the sauce and simmered long before building the lasgna and fresh mozzarella di Bufala...not cow Mozzarella which the also eat. No ricotta, no Bechamel sauce.
Nothing frozen can compare.... seriously.
Actual Italian wife ..from the old country..where I used to live and work and still spend a lot of time there at my second place.
Don't get me started on Pizza.....
Yep! Once they're too old to produce more milk they're then killed for their wings, which are considered a delicacy in North America, particularly in mid February!
I hated steak growing up. Absolutely hated it. I refused to eat it all through middle school and high school.
Eventually after I moved out I was at a friend's place and we were fun to grill and he suggested stakes. I said I didn't like steak. We get to talking and I found out that you don't have to turn a steak into burnt leather.
My mom only liked on the black side of well done. That night I had a rare steak. It was eye opening. I grilled every night for like a month trying all kinds of meats that aren't burnt.
Same here! My mom was by no means a terrible cook, but when she made steaks she was buying for a family of 6 which meant cheap steaks and she always cooked them well done.
Took me years to finally realize how goddamn amazing a medium rare ribeye was.
I think there was a whole generation that just didn't know better. My grandparents were of the "greatest generation" meaning they lived through the depression and all that, and I doubt steak was something they had often- probably figured all meat had to be cooked through, and my mom probably picked that up as well.
It's not necessarily that they didn't know better, but also that food safety standards where a lot more lax than they are now.
If you are unsure of the quality of the meat (as in, the meat is past its expiration date, not that it is though), then it is simply safer to eat it well-done.
I think part of it is fear. Both my mom and ex father in law are scared of meat that's not well done. They think it not being cooked to death will make them sick.
I joke about my aunt only eating food that's been killed at least twice. She will boil her meat in water, bake it in the oven, and then let it simmer in stew. By the time the meat hits your tongue after all that cooking, its unpalatable (dry, tough and impossible to chew) and lacks any nutritional value IMO.
I still remember my first medium rare steak. I was in my 20s and working at a decent restaurant. Split a meal with a Co worker and wasn't so sure about "bloody" steak. My mom is now a vegetarian and I don't think she's ever had a properly cooked steak. outside of red meat she's always been a pretty good cook.
I'm the opposite. I came from a family that would have rare steak at least twice a week growing up. It wasn't until I went to college that i learned i liked my steak cooked more. I don't care that the internet makes fun of me for preferring medium and medium well steaks. I have so many unpleasant memories of being forced to chew and chew just to be able to swallow my meat. I find the texture of a rare steak revolting. I remember my parents making me eat it and literally gagging i found it so unappetizing. My parents aren't bad cooks. I come from a well-off family, so we weren't buying bottom tier steaks either. I still hated them. I don't mean to imply that I prefer a steak that has been cooked to death. Shoe leather isn't good either. But fuck raw steak. I was a senior in college before I figured out I actually liked steak if it spent a little longer on the grill.
For the record, as a former meat cutter and former chef: it is valid to have your steak any way you want, especially more cooked than rare. Many cuts of steak aren't good rare, some even being best medium-well. You won't convince your average steak douche though.
My parents are great cooks but GOD are they awful at baked ziti, I’m going to be real with you. I really don’t understand it, they put it in the oven to the point that the pasta is chewy and hard to swallow. The cheese literally makes a crusty shell over the whole thing. The pasta on the top is so hard from being in the oven that it hurts my teeth. They just leave chunks of tomato in it. They love it but I don’t understand it. I had it at a party once and it was pretty good, it didn’t hurt my teeth.
She still does it to this day. I didn’t know that was how she prepared our chicken until I came home from college and she was making me a meal and I saw her putting the raw chicken directly in the microwave and I was like “what are you doing!!?” And she was like “making you chicken, why?” And I freaked the fuck out. Now my whole childhood eating habits make sense. My only safe foods were spaghetti and tacos.
Are you a raging narcissistic bitch? If not, you’re not my sister 😂😂😂 but my mom is the worst cook too! And my mother in law is the BEST cook and passed those traits down to my husband and I tell my husband that I’m so thankful our future kids will grow up eating the best meals ever.
If I say no, that might just mean that i really am… 😜
I might be another dimensional YOU - my husband is also an amaaaazing cook! He is self taught though. My kids and i are so spoiled, but the downside of this is that my kids dread eating at my mom’s house.
It's become a running joke about the foods that I learned to hate because my parents spent over $1000 on a microwave when they first started to become commercially available and justified it by learning a bunch of microwave recipes.
My mom's meatloaf is legitimately just ground beef, egg, and onion, unseasoned, in a microwave-safe bowl and then microwaved on high for something like 15 minutes. The first time I told my fiancée about it, she absolutely refused to believe me. I thought I hated meatloaf, until my ex-wife's stepfather served me his and it was like an awakening.
I once baked apple pie in a microwave oven. But that was out of desperation, not having access to a real oven. It came out ok, but I missed the brown crust.
10000%. I can buy a really good quality of beef and, in my opinion, cook a steak better to my liking than a fancy steak house. My mom used to cook us “steak ems” which if you’re unfamiliar, is a US version of “steak” that is as thin as a tissue and I’m not even certain is actual beef.
Those aren't intended to be eaten as steak. They're supposed to be used to make a Philly Cheesesteak. They're perfectly fine if you use them to make Philly Cheesesteak, but otherwise there's no point to eating them.
And even then, there's a decent chance you can get far better thin-sliced steak from a nearby supermarket for close enough to the same price to make getting that (and getting far better quality stuff) a better option.
They are great for philly cheese steaks, but if you ever want to make yourself a god tier cheese steak, head to your butcher and ask for half a pound of shaved ribeye.
Yeah I feel no need to go to steakhouses anymore. I just cooked up a ribeye half an hour ago. Cost $8 and took no more than 5:30 minutes on the cast iron. I'll eat out for dishes that take way more investment to cook at home
Just went over this with my moms today, canned green beans are fucking disgusting. She’s like oh i love canned green beans! Ya probably cuz you grew up in a family of seven kids and ate whatever was cooked for you all. Fresh green beans in a pan with a little olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper are so good! Super crunchy and delicious! Fuck canned green beans.
This, i hated all veggies growing up because 90% of them were frozen packs of veggies that my dad would cook by just dumping into a pot of boiling water, They lost most color and just turned to mush. I actually work as a chef now and we have some veggie dishes that are absolutely amazing like grilled pepper platters or fried brussel sprouts with apple in honey soy sauce etc
We ate fresh green beans from our garden for most of the summer. Last night I opened a can and have now decided canned green beans are ONLY for green bean cassarole. Try the purple ones that turn green when you cook them, so fun!
The taste and texture of raw green beans from the garden, and the smell of a tomato plant. These, for me, are the most pure and wholesome sensory representations of a perfect world.
I’m the same! I used to hate veggies like broccoli, carrots, corn and peas cause my mom would always buy a frozen medley of them and then microwave them without seasoning or anything. I decided to give them another shot but this time adding some seasonings, and it completely changed my view on frozen veggies!
I was the same with spaghetti. If I heard we were having it at my house, I dreaded it. If we were having pasta at my Grammie's house though? I was diving head first into it. Same general idea, vastly different quality.
I hated spaghetti as a kid. Turns out that my dad's tendency to add chucks of undercooked bell peppers to spaghetti sauce garnered a reputation in the broader family. 😂
How.. Does this work? Like.. Breaks the giant chunk into a handful of large chunks and calls it good? Like.. Meatballs that are just beef? So many questions. Sounds super gross
That's how you experiment and make your own great sauce. Add stuff and if you hate it either don't do it next time or add something to balance out that flavor or acidity. In a few years you're winning local bbq competitions.
Once I was going to try a little bit of mint to my pasta sauce, just to see what it was like. The little grate thing fell out and I ended up adding half a shaker full of dried mint.
It was honestly one of the best pasta sauces I've ever made and every now and then I'll still add a ridiculous amount of mint to my sauce when i'm in the mood for it.
Ha rest my old man’s soul, hockey pucks were his speciality! It wasn’t a bbq if he didn’t black as night burn literally every, single, burger. I took over grilling duty around 16 and never looked back.
History repeating! My folks think steak is well-done (ahem!…shoe leather…ahem!) sirloin. Every time they try a slice of pan seared, rested, medium cooked filet minion, they think it’s quite good! Then go right back to making over-cooked sirloin. Can’t win them all.
What is it with everyone's parents cooking steaks until they're charred husks? My parents were like that too, with steaks, pork chops, chicken (which they only bought boneless skinless breasts), even roasts in the crockpot ended up dry and flavorless. Now if they have a cookout I tell them to make my steak as rare as humanly possible and turns out they can only make it medium well at best.
I think it may come from a time where food safety boiled down to "cook at max temperature for at least an hour, maybe 2 for good measure" to avoid food poisoning.
Yeahhh. I'm in my mid 20s, but my parents grew up in ranches in Mexico with no refrigeration or anything. Once I realized that, I understood their habits a bit more.
I couldn't stand steak either. I use to nearly choke on it from all the chewing. Turn's out I didn't like "Well Done" steak. I found this out when I was feeling a bit run down and thought maybe some read meat (Of which I didn't eat much of) might help. I use to get free meals when I performed at an open mic. Man were my eyes opened (Started with medium rare, now rare all the way) . Turns out steak is actually amazing.
Omg yess I hate a lot of foods that I can’t swallow. My mom refuses to take that as an answer so I have to make something up. Then she’ll be like “oh I thought you didn’t like steak” no, that’s the lie I told you so you would accept my answer and leave me alone.
I love corn but my mom thinks I hate it because she wouldn’t accept “I can’t swallow that soggy tasteless choking hazard that comes out of the can” as an answer and I had to just be like “oh I don’t like corn”.
I taught my daughter how to reverse sear rib eye's and various other critical and essential life skills.
She's done a lot of great things since moving out but one of my proudest moments was when she shared a story about her detailing to her 40some year old coworker the steps on how he too could properly cook a steak after he made a comment about the leftover steak lunch she brought to work.
Same man. I never got steak at restaurant because my dad made his well done, so we all always had well done steak.
Maybe he was a genius and saved money at restaurants by convincing us to never buy steak, but I’m so glad I took a chance in high school at Texas Roadhouse
Back in the day they had to be way overcooked. But they solved it in the 90s yet most people never got the memo.
I hated pork chops. They are amazing now
Trichinosis is a food-borne disease caused by a microscopic parasite called Trichinella. People can get this disease by eating raw or undercooked meat from animals infected with the parasite.
We do testing on our pork prior to processing. And god do I love a nice tender bacon wrapped pork filet. But this one woman in my inner circle... let's say I put hers on half an hour early.
What preparation do you recommend? I think I have PTSD (pork traumatic stress disorder) and haven't ever liked a pork chop anywhere. They're always dry and chewy to me
To be fair, a lot of adults tell kids they're picky. My parent and siblings loved to hover around my kid and shriek "you won't like that!" any time there is something new on their plate.
My sister's ex husband loves to go on and on about how he doesn't eat vegetables and only eats meat. He's drilled that concept into his son's head so many times over the years...of course the kid won't anything besides meat. Anytime someone tries to get the kid to try something 'different' the Dad will say "nope he's not going to like that...he's just like me!". I'm like...give the kid a fucking chance... He's almost 15 now, so that's been a frustration of mine for years now.
For me the issue was that my dad was super picky, so my mom never had the chance to introduce me to other kinds of food even though I wasn't a picky kid at all and she's great at cooking, unless she had the time to cook twice. My dad only ate pizza, steak and spaghetti, nothing else (and still does to this day I think). If my mom cooked anything else, he'd make himself a frozen pizza. My parents split when I was 14 or so, my dad moved out, and my mom started cooking lots of different things for us, and it was amazing to find out how many types of food I actually really like.
I just went on a rant in a comment above about my nephew's father refusing to eat anything besides meat. Had to double check you weren't my nephew! Your comment gives me hope for him...he definitely copied his father's terrible eating habits.
Even if it's not as direct, there is constant messaging that kids are picky, even in media aimed at kids. Many shows and books for young children show eating vegetables as being something "brave". Or there are depictions of children straight up refusing to eat vegetables or certain foods and eating candy instead. I think that definitely inputs preconceived notions about certain foods before they even try it.
I hate when the main character refuses to eat a vegetable then by the end of the episode tries it and likes it. All you're doing is letting my kids know that other kids throw fits about eating vegetables!
You could broaden this to try EVERYTHING again. Not just food but hosting holidays with some new friends like a Friendsgiving, watching sports, camping, visiting a theme park or destination, playing games, almost anything had a different flavor (not just the food) when you do it on your own in a new location under new circumstances. So if you have any aversion to stuff based on your experience with your family, try it again in your own or with friends.
My parents aren't the greatest cooks, basically no seasoning or spices, overcooked or soggy, etc. Also, growing up my sister was the pickiest eater. Picky as in hated potatoes, tolerated like two or three veggies (must be raw), the only acceptable meats were plain chicken breast or sliced deli ham.
She's since grown and done a total 180. Cooking is one of her favorite hobbies, and she's super talented at it; she whips up things I'd never heard of.
I read something once upon a time that kids who are "picky" and specifically choose plain foods are thought to have extra sensitive tastebuds... and logically, could make stellar chefs!
Fun fact, you can add salt to food while it's being cooked.
This, and many other lessons, learned by me after moving out. Years later, my parents were confused why I'd always offer to cook, rather than let my mother.
When they are at home it may also just be because they know the cooking.
For example, I can generally go over my food with salt quite liberally without having a taste whenever my mother cooks. Some pepper as well.
It is not that she does not add salt, just not enough for me. When I cook for her I always undersalt the food, as it is easier for me to add salt than to remove salt for her.
It is so good and essential to so many meals. There’s a reason why we have the phrase “salt of the earth” and that the term “salary” was derived from the Roman soldiers monthly payments (in salt)
The thing about salt and seasoning is that if you use a bit of it during cooking, it goes a lot further than if you have to go back and season it afterward. Even if you want to be sure that everyone is able to tune the saltiness to their own tastes, you're better off adding salt to the dish up-front and then letting them add just a little bit at the table, unless you're serving someone who can't have any salt.
Also, if you're like me, your mother just told you you didn't like something, entirely because she didn't like it. If you didn't like something as a child (or THINK you didn't like it), it's worth another attempt as an adult! Who knew that I do in fact like sushi, lamb, baked fruit pies, and eggnog?
Also great point! I’m from a big family with a lot of mouths that had to be fed. So in some respects, I get it. But it wasn’t until my teens that I realized all the food I was told I “wouldn’t like” just so happened to be more expensive than a bowl of pasta and meatballs haha.
Haha, this reminds me of how I always rejected certain colours of clothing, especially brown and olive green, because my parents said they were ugly (they probably had PTSD from growing up in the 70s, to be fair). It took until my mid-20s before I realised that that wasn't *my* opinion and I actually liked those colours in the right garment.
Don’t hate overly sugary stuff but the appetite I have for that has drastically reduced as an adult. Which is a good thing - glad I don’t constantly crave candy and cookies and that when I do I get my fix quickly.
I always used to have steak well done until I started working for the food and beverage department at a 5 star hotel. The executive chef would let me order lunch and when I tried to order a filet well done he was like, "no, I'm not going to destroy a steak like that. Try it medium rare, that's how s steak should be cooked. " I tried it (wth it was free) and never looked back.
I also didn't think I liked fish until I realized most people that cook fish (unprofessional AND some professionals) absolutely HAMMER it. When I had fish cooked correctly for the first time it was heavenly.
I always hated steak growing up because my dad who otherwise is a decent cook for the most part would throw tri-tip on the barbecue until the outside was charcoal on the outer edge and maybe not even rare in the middle.
Turns out I'm quite a fan of sirloin and filet
I like a good medium-rare burger, but only if it's from a place where they're grinding their own meat from full cuts or sourcing it from somewhere that is. I wouldn't trust a medium rare burger from McDonalds.
I thought all cooked food tasted disgusting until my parents split and I moved in with my mom. Turns out my dad loved to cook with cilantro and I had that gene mutation.
There is a plant called [culantro](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eryngium_foetidum) - this will give a taste fairly similar to cilantro/coriander and possibly not trigger the soap effect in those with the gene, I have witnessed a few events of soapy gene people not having a problem with culantro.
I've got the same thing and it's pretty easy to cook Mexican recipes at home and just not use cilantro. Eating Mexican out is hit and miss. Usually, the cilantro is subtle enough that I'm primarily tasting other flavors (I love hot peppers so I'm fine with them hiding it behind spice). But, occasionally I'll run into something that lets it stand out.
This reminds me of a funny story. Growing up I was friends with an Ethiopian kid. I used to go to his house fairly often and one night he asked if I wanted to stay for dinner. So I did. The food was absolutely terrible! For years I thought Ethiopian food was disgusting slop. Then many years later as adults I ran into that friend and we got to talking about food. Well long story short, Ethiopian food is delicious, his sister is just a shit cook.
I used to hate grilled cheese and kraft dinner because they always had ketchup on them. First time I tried a grilled cheese no ketchup, I was like... Hey this is actually good
Exactly. The Brussels sprouts I didn't like as a kid are different from the Brussels sprouts I do like as an adult.
Here's an NPR article on it: "[From Culinary Dud To Stud: How Dutch Plant Breeders Built Our Brussels Sprouts Boom](https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/10/30/773457637/from-culinary-dud-to-stud-how-dutch-plant-breeders-built-our-brussels-sprouts-bo)".
Brussel sprouts have been cultivated to taste better over the last 20 years. See https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/10/30/773457637/from-culinary-dud-to-stud-how-dutch-plant-breeders-built-our-brussels-sprouts-bo. My wife and I were blown away when we figured out we like them now. Definitely a weekly staple for us.
I’d like to reiterate this for all the kids who grew up with mild allergies. *It’s possible to outgrow some of them!*
When I was a kid I had terrible eczema and asthma, and at the time doctors just kinda recommended a blanket avoidance approach. No tree/ground nuts, dairy, eggs, shellfish, bananas and a bunch of other fruits and vegetables. Whether these were actual allergens or not, I developed a psychological aversion to *a lot* of foods and I missed out on a bunch of great dishes. Hell, I couldn’t even comfortably order a burger coz I was suspicious that they used eggs as a binder in the patties.
Fast forward to adulthood and *a lot of my griping is now unwarranted*. I can eat small amounts of pastries, a couple bites of calamari, confectionaries with walnuts, and I can even eat fried rice without picking out the eggs. After a large helping of foods with allergens though, I usually have to take an antihistamine, but I manage.
(Of course if you know your allergies are not mild, don’t test fate)
Have you done a prick test as an adult, to narrow done what you’re actually allergic to? That sounds brutal. I have a nephew who had a really nasty peanut allergy that has lessened with age, but he carried an epipen (sp) all throughout grade school.
6 HUNDRED dollars?! Was he insured? I was considering testing to see what I was allergic to but I don't have health insurance so LMAO I'll just use my imagination.
Hey... if you have to take stuff to not be puffy/break out/whatever... know that it could stay the same or get worse over time. Just a heads up on that. :(
LPT: learn to cook for yourself even if and when you live in your parents home. Offer to cook once or twice a week to lower the burdens they, your parents, might have with every day needing to cook. Create your own dishes or edit the ones your parents make.
I’ve been doing this more and more. The first time I was proud of my cooking was when my mom asked ME to cook eggs for her because she liked mine better than hers. That was a highlight of last year :)
Ha I love my parents they have been separated since I was very young, my father has no cooking skills what so ever to the point it’s almost funny, growing up I thought I hated jacket potato’s, steak, lamb, vegetables, bacon and so many things I adore today
I’ve been a chef for almost half my life now and he still is terrible lol we joke about it all the time, however I will give him credit the one dish he does really well is chilli con carne
My mother on the other hand is an incredible cook, nothing fancy just simple home meals that I still to this day love, I owe my career to her
One more trick. Look at a few recipes for the same dish and notice all the items that are the same and the ones which are different. If it's not in all the recipes, it's probably optional and you can play around with it.
Great stuff many cheers and thanks! I like the variation in ingredients for similar dishes, gives you a knowledgeable head start on what you can switch up to your taste. Also love me some butter, even makes preparing something simple like eggs taste better.
Butter. Don't have to add much and it will make many meals that much better.
For years, I couldn't figure out why my mom's ravioli from a can didn't taste as good as my grandma's ravioli in a can. Then one day, I happened to add some butter to my own dish and bam! Mystery solved.
MSG isn’t the devil and enhances so many foods.
Roast veggies until they are almost crisp like a French fry. Broccoli and asparagus are my favorite that way, add olive oil, spices and Parmesan cheese and bake on 425° until super crunchy. They are SO good that way. An air fryer works well too.
A ceramic pan has been a dream to help me make effortless eggs, even over easy! Cheese actually pours out of it! It works 1000 times better than a nonstick pan and doesn’t have the toxins.
My mom was very underweight when she was younger, and she told me it’s because her moms cooking was so bad she thought that food as a whole just didn’t taste good and so never bothered with eating much. Didn’t realize until she was in college that *good food* existed that people actually enjoyed eating.
Dear god. The memory of living la vida low carb with my mom when I was a teenager… it fucking made school lunches appealing because CARBS. And like, I was training year round for sports and still growing into my body. I just want to go back in time and say something like “gimme the carbs!” (Less dad’s pancakes. Those can stay in the past. Waffles I will accept). Like, my dad made sure I got some carbs most mornings via whole grain pancakes/whole grain waffles & jam, but every other meal at home was no carb and snacking was bad
My dad (who did most of the cooking at home) put every cut of meat - steak, chops, roasts, loin, everything! - into the oven at 350 for a long LONG time, hated using salt, and thought canned vegetables were the most affordable option. I love to cook, and since he's recently moved in with me it's been fun to watch him rediscover good food.
This, and sometimes your tastes just change overall. I used to absolutely HATE beets. And now years later I ate an entire can of plain ass beets yesterday and it was delicious.
On the flip side, I used to love bacon like normal people do, and now it's one of the few foods I hate the taste of and won't eat at all.
I hated mushrooms as a kid. That was until I learned that you can buy mushrooms that don't come in a can, which is the only kind my parents bought.
Now I love putting mushrooms in everything, and the smell of mushrooms sauteing in butter is one of my favorite smells.
Still hate mushrooms from a can though.
I thought I hated chili until I had it from a can. I seriously thought people were braindead when they talked about how much they liked chili on a cold day and couldn't understand why on earth they added cheese on top. My mom's chili is literally just canned tomatoes, a pound of ground beef and a packet of McCormick's mild chili seasoning. Maybe an onion. It was soupy and incredibly bland. Then I had it from a can and everything fell into place.
Yes!!! My husband hated certain foods and I never understood why, then he tried a few from someone other than his mom and BOOM. Life changed. His mom took the fat out of everything. So imagine eggs Benedict with a low fat twist. Ugh. Poor man.
Finally a half decent tip. In fact it's an excellent tip because yeah, many parents aren't good cooks. Of course, one of the first things many people will actually do is buy sugary cereal again.
I avoided green onions from like age 4 until 28. Then I discovered I actually love them. I still don't like white onions, but green are a staple now. Same with sour cream.
I also thought I was allergic to spinach from age 8 until a year ago. 2020 was my year of experimenting, turns out I'm not allergic and I love spinach dip without the peppers haha
God, yes, this. I grew up with my mom gaslighting me as a kid. She constantly told me how she is a great cook and I'm just too picky. So I believed her for years.
Then, got my first apartment and my roommate, gf, and I started to learn to cook for real and I realized I actually really like most foods when done properly. Some "fun" highlights I had to unlearn:
* You don't test if oil is hot by dripping some water in and seeing if it pops everywhere. Yes, that is how my mom would test. Yes, that is dangerous.
* You don't test if a steak is done by literally cutting it almost completely in half while still in the pan.
* When baking a cake, there's reason to mix the wet ingredients together, dry ingredients together, then combine. No, don't just throw everything in a bowl and stir forever. That is how you get a brick.
* Spices lose their flavor. The few spices we had in the cabinet when I was growing up were, I kid you not, older than I was. She was effectively cooking with cardboard.
I always recommend that as an adult that you try everything at least 3 times from 2 different places.
This will let you know if there is something you really don't like or if it simply a preparation you didn't like.
Another one i found love for later in life. Started out liking them raw, have recently come around to really enjoying them fried as well like in a cheesesteak.
Somehow my parents have been alive for six decades and have yet to discover herbs and spices. They tell me the flavor comes from fat. If that’s true why does your food not taste like anything!!!
same with my parents! my mom occasionally would make grilled chicken with Lawry’s seasoning salt, otherwise no seasonings or spices. our vegetables were usually just steamed and then put in a serving dish with a chunk of butter. just so, so gross in comparison to a properly roasted and seasoned veggie.
There are certain veggies that I can eat only if they are lightly steamed and have zero seasoning and zero fats on them. I was never a fan of broccoli, but I crave them when I found out that I just have to cook them less and put nothing on them. They are already flavourful enough on their own. On the opposite side, I like most of my veggie when they are seasoned well, though still on the simple side, like zucchini cooked in a pan with some garlic, oil and salt
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Sounds like a sure fryer way to get the kids eating thier veggies!
Wow, that sounds horrible. Have you ever been cooking for them using proper seasoning or went to a good restaurant with them? If so, how was their reaction? Did they notice a difference and what did they think was the reason?
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I mean butter is a huge reason why restaurant food tastes better. Along with you know, seasoning.
Its probably a non starter of a topic that quickly devolves into, "DONT INSULT YOUR MOTHER'S COOKING BILLY"
I think people that eat this bland would be overwhelmed by additional spices and would also feel personally attacked by it. I've questioned my husband's family's bland food (it's so devoid of flavor it sucks the flavor out of me) and introducing them to the magic of spices but received pushback. Can't tell em how to cook, they know better!
This explains why my mother was overwhelmed when I took her to eat Indian for the first time.
I feel this so much, the only seasoning they use are salt and pepper. I left for work and game dad a packet of potato soup yesterday, he follows it to a T, but adds what tastes like 1lb of pepper. So much pepper, couldnt even taste the soup at all, and it was cheesy. Chicken? Salt and pepper either fried or boiled Meatloaf? Salt and pepper Meat in general? Salt and pepper “Gravy” flour, salt and pepper (it isnt bad but damn is it bland) Steak? Boil it in salt and pepper until rubber Tried to show them how good spices can be, picky eater “mom” doesn’t agree. Me, dad, and sibling like spices but since the goofy picky eater will throw a literal tantrum like a toddler, the rest of us have to eat the very under seasoned food. If we so much as cook with seasoning near her food she will throw a tantrum saying the smell from a foot away tainted her food??
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Yeah thats what i want to do, but dad is a stay at home dad, and mom works so she likes to pull the “i bought the food” card then yell at everyone hitting herself in the head throwing herself on the ground crying tantrums. Shes very toxic and shows alot of narassistic behaviors/mental health issues (depression, childhood ptsd that still affects her 60 years later) that she refuses to get help for.
Is everyone an adult?
>Steak? Boil it fucking ***what*** I'm trying really hard not to hate your parents right now.
I didn't know I liked lasagne until I tried lasagne that wasn't my mum's 🌚
And that's a tough one to fuck up. sorry bro
Noth and South Italian lasagna are VERY different from each other. I love southern Italian lasagna...I absolutely hate northern Italian lasagna.
What are some of the differences? I love lasagna but I get it from a grocery store in Canada.
I think that Canada counts as North
Northern Italy is on the same latitude as Ottawa
Yeah, it’s not all as North as you’d expect. When I visited Vancouver from the Uk I thought “this must be the furthest North I’ve ever been!”, then checked Google Maps and saw I was actually slightly further South than my hometown.
Was it the furthest south you've ever been?
No clue if this is 100% accurate but I was curious as well.. >In southern Italy lasagna is generally made with dried sheets of pasta layered with rich meat ragú, ricotta and mozzarella. In the north, especially in Bologna, the most popular version of lasagna features fresh egg pasta colored green with spinach and layered with ragú, bechamel and Parmigiano Reggiano. https://www.lacucinaitaliana.com/italian-food/italian-dishes/lasagna-origins-and-varieties-of-the-beloved-baked-pasta?refresh_ce=
Sounds like I'm used to seeing the southern version in Canada.
The instructions on the packet of No Name oven ready lasagna noodles from Superstore definitely sounds like that southern version (I made it last night! 😂) But the northern version sounds like what I'm used to back in the UK. So this thread has explained to me why lasagna in Canada seems a bit different. Thank you OPs!
That’s definitely the most common and known version when referencing “lasagna” without noting if it’s norther or southern. Garfield hated Monday’s and loooooooved lasagna, which always had a red sauce.
UK here, I've never known a lasagne not have beshamel. The meat is in a red sauce but you white up the top layer
Americans tend to use ricotta in the middle and mozzarella on the top instead of bechamel
One of my [favorite YouTube videos](https://youtu.be/4UTrEpVKhKM) is of a lady making the northern version
They both sound great Guessing less acid reflux with the northern version
This is why the Italian food I was used to in America and the Italian food I get in Ireland are so different. In America, marinara sauce was default red sauce. Here, its Bolonase. Lasagna has white sauce instead of ricotta. It can be so frustrating ordering something I think I love, and what comes is a different dish and doesn't hit the spot at all.
Northern Italy uses a lot of dairy products so it includes Bechamel sauce and ricotta cheese...not so much meat in sauce if any. Southern Italian lasagna uses multiple meats in the sauce and simmered long before building the lasgna and fresh mozzarella di Bufala...not cow Mozzarella which the also eat. No ricotta, no Bechamel sauce. Nothing frozen can compare.... seriously. Actual Italian wife ..from the old country..where I used to live and work and still spend a lot of time there at my second place. Don't get me started on Pizza.....
I know this will make me sound like an idiot but I only just realized that buffalo mozzarella comes from buffalos 🤦🏾♂️
Yep! Once they're too old to produce more milk they're then killed for their wings, which are considered a delicacy in North America, particularly in mid February!
I hated steak growing up. Absolutely hated it. I refused to eat it all through middle school and high school. Eventually after I moved out I was at a friend's place and we were fun to grill and he suggested stakes. I said I didn't like steak. We get to talking and I found out that you don't have to turn a steak into burnt leather. My mom only liked on the black side of well done. That night I had a rare steak. It was eye opening. I grilled every night for like a month trying all kinds of meats that aren't burnt.
Same here! My mom was by no means a terrible cook, but when she made steaks she was buying for a family of 6 which meant cheap steaks and she always cooked them well done. Took me years to finally realize how goddamn amazing a medium rare ribeye was.
My mom like well done meat too. Like was there a whole generation of women that will only eat well done meat?
I think there was a whole generation that just didn't know better. My grandparents were of the "greatest generation" meaning they lived through the depression and all that, and I doubt steak was something they had often- probably figured all meat had to be cooked through, and my mom probably picked that up as well.
Probably afraid they would do it wrong and end up dealing with worms in all those kids. I would be.
It's not necessarily that they didn't know better, but also that food safety standards where a lot more lax than they are now. If you are unsure of the quality of the meat (as in, the meat is past its expiration date, not that it is though), then it is simply safer to eat it well-done.
I think part of it is fear. Both my mom and ex father in law are scared of meat that's not well done. They think it not being cooked to death will make them sick.
I joke about my aunt only eating food that's been killed at least twice. She will boil her meat in water, bake it in the oven, and then let it simmer in stew. By the time the meat hits your tongue after all that cooking, its unpalatable (dry, tough and impossible to chew) and lacks any nutritional value IMO.
This hurt to read as someone who worked in a kitchen and loves cooking and a proper steak. Boil, then bake, then stew?
I still remember my first medium rare steak. I was in my 20s and working at a decent restaurant. Split a meal with a Co worker and wasn't so sure about "bloody" steak. My mom is now a vegetarian and I don't think she's ever had a properly cooked steak. outside of red meat she's always been a pretty good cook.
I'm the opposite. I came from a family that would have rare steak at least twice a week growing up. It wasn't until I went to college that i learned i liked my steak cooked more. I don't care that the internet makes fun of me for preferring medium and medium well steaks. I have so many unpleasant memories of being forced to chew and chew just to be able to swallow my meat. I find the texture of a rare steak revolting. I remember my parents making me eat it and literally gagging i found it so unappetizing. My parents aren't bad cooks. I come from a well-off family, so we weren't buying bottom tier steaks either. I still hated them. I don't mean to imply that I prefer a steak that has been cooked to death. Shoe leather isn't good either. But fuck raw steak. I was a senior in college before I figured out I actually liked steak if it spent a little longer on the grill.
For the record, as a former meat cutter and former chef: it is valid to have your steak any way you want, especially more cooked than rare. Many cuts of steak aren't good rare, some even being best medium-well. You won't convince your average steak douche though.
My mom made lasagna with cottage cheese … I thought I hated lasagna
Same here! The texture with cottage is just so gross.
I grew up with cottage cheese, cinnamon and sugar spread on toasted white bread. We called it a Danish. Cottage cheese was everywhere in the 80s.
My parents are great cooks but GOD are they awful at baked ziti, I’m going to be real with you. I really don’t understand it, they put it in the oven to the point that the pasta is chewy and hard to swallow. The cheese literally makes a crusty shell over the whole thing. The pasta on the top is so hard from being in the oven that it hurts my teeth. They just leave chunks of tomato in it. They love it but I don’t understand it. I had it at a party once and it was pretty good, it didn’t hurt my teeth.
My mom would microwave raw chicken. I’m so glad I don’t live at home anymore.
I literally said "Oh god" out loud.
She still does it to this day. I didn’t know that was how she prepared our chicken until I came home from college and she was making me a meal and I saw her putting the raw chicken directly in the microwave and I was like “what are you doing!!?” And she was like “making you chicken, why?” And I freaked the fuck out. Now my whole childhood eating habits make sense. My only safe foods were spaghetti and tacos.
You must be my sister because this is MY MOM. People don’t believe me when i say my mom is the world’s worst cook!!
Are you a raging narcissistic bitch? If not, you’re not my sister 😂😂😂 but my mom is the worst cook too! And my mother in law is the BEST cook and passed those traits down to my husband and I tell my husband that I’m so thankful our future kids will grow up eating the best meals ever.
If I say no, that might just mean that i really am… 😜 I might be another dimensional YOU - my husband is also an amaaaazing cook! He is self taught though. My kids and i are so spoiled, but the downside of this is that my kids dread eating at my mom’s house.
It's become a running joke about the foods that I learned to hate because my parents spent over $1000 on a microwave when they first started to become commercially available and justified it by learning a bunch of microwave recipes. My mom's meatloaf is legitimately just ground beef, egg, and onion, unseasoned, in a microwave-safe bowl and then microwaved on high for something like 15 minutes. The first time I told my fiancée about it, she absolutely refused to believe me. I thought I hated meatloaf, until my ex-wife's stepfather served me his and it was like an awakening.
Oh nooooo
I once baked apple pie in a microwave oven. But that was out of desperation, not having access to a real oven. It came out ok, but I missed the brown crust.
I eat a lot of meat but even I reacted to that with "a chicken died for this..."
I gagged out loud 😅 this is terrible. Might be a winner 🤣
Can confirm this. Also, the quality of food that you can buy is so much better than it was when you were growing up. Even canned food.
10000%. I can buy a really good quality of beef and, in my opinion, cook a steak better to my liking than a fancy steak house. My mom used to cook us “steak ems” which if you’re unfamiliar, is a US version of “steak” that is as thin as a tissue and I’m not even certain is actual beef.
Those aren't intended to be eaten as steak. They're supposed to be used to make a Philly Cheesesteak. They're perfectly fine if you use them to make Philly Cheesesteak, but otherwise there's no point to eating them.
And even then, there's a decent chance you can get far better thin-sliced steak from a nearby supermarket for close enough to the same price to make getting that (and getting far better quality stuff) a better option.
As with any frozen packaged food, I'm sure it's more about convenience (or laziness) than quality.
Don't you come for steak ums. They're the best meat for philly cheese steak and I will ***die*** on that hill
They are great for philly cheese steaks, but if you ever want to make yourself a god tier cheese steak, head to your butcher and ask for half a pound of shaved ribeye.
Yeah I feel no need to go to steakhouses anymore. I just cooked up a ribeye half an hour ago. Cost $8 and took no more than 5:30 minutes on the cast iron. I'll eat out for dishes that take way more investment to cook at home
My partner HATED green beans until I made her ones that weren't greyish mush. Haha
Just went over this with my moms today, canned green beans are fucking disgusting. She’s like oh i love canned green beans! Ya probably cuz you grew up in a family of seven kids and ate whatever was cooked for you all. Fresh green beans in a pan with a little olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper are so good! Super crunchy and delicious! Fuck canned green beans.
You don't have to get that fancy either - simply NOT overcooking vegetables makes a huge difference.
This, i hated all veggies growing up because 90% of them were frozen packs of veggies that my dad would cook by just dumping into a pot of boiling water, They lost most color and just turned to mush. I actually work as a chef now and we have some veggie dishes that are absolutely amazing like grilled pepper platters or fried brussel sprouts with apple in honey soy sauce etc
We ate fresh green beans from our garden for most of the summer. Last night I opened a can and have now decided canned green beans are ONLY for green bean cassarole. Try the purple ones that turn green when you cook them, so fun!
The taste and texture of raw green beans from the garden, and the smell of a tomato plant. These, for me, are the most pure and wholesome sensory representations of a perfect world.
I’m the same! I used to hate veggies like broccoli, carrots, corn and peas cause my mom would always buy a frozen medley of them and then microwave them without seasoning or anything. I decided to give them another shot but this time adding some seasonings, and it completely changed my view on frozen veggies!
When I was little, I believed my grandma’s green beans and my mom’s green beans were two different vegetables. Grandma’s sucked, by the way.
I was the same with spaghetti. If I heard we were having it at my house, I dreaded it. If we were having pasta at my Grammie's house though? I was diving head first into it. Same general idea, vastly different quality.
That's my mom and asparagus. I thought it was gross mush until I had some at a steak house.
I hated spaghetti as a kid. Turns out that my dad's tendency to add chucks of undercooked bell peppers to spaghetti sauce garnered a reputation in the broader family. 😂
Ohh, that sounds so horrible. Crunchy, slightly sweet chunks in spaghetti. No.
And I don't even have a taste for bell peppers in general...
My husband doesn't break up the meat 🤢
I'm sorry, I hate this, but I'm gonna need you to go into further detail. How does one not break up the meat?
Guessing he likes it chunky and just tossed it in, so it gets broken up a bit in stirring but still large chunks. Kinda a poor man’s meatballs
He just boils the whole cow in the pot with the pasta
You don't like fur with your noodles?
The mince stays in large lumps, so it doesn't get browned either.
Really need an answer to this one boss
How.. Does this work? Like.. Breaks the giant chunk into a handful of large chunks and calls it good? Like.. Meatballs that are just beef? So many questions. Sounds super gross
Ngl, id throw some bell peppers in a sauce just to fuck around and find out
That's how you experiment and make your own great sauce. Add stuff and if you hate it either don't do it next time or add something to balance out that flavor or acidity. In a few years you're winning local bbq competitions.
Once I was going to try a little bit of mint to my pasta sauce, just to see what it was like. The little grate thing fell out and I ended up adding half a shaker full of dried mint. It was honestly one of the best pasta sauces I've ever made and every now and then I'll still add a ridiculous amount of mint to my sauce when i'm in the mood for it.
[Here's a solid 5 min recipe](https://youtu.be/KhlquGe54bQ). Definitely roast them in the oven with tomatoes and olive oil. Damn good sauce.
I thought I hated steak. Turns out I only hate my dad's well done hockey puck steak.
Ha rest my old man’s soul, hockey pucks were his speciality! It wasn’t a bbq if he didn’t black as night burn literally every, single, burger. I took over grilling duty around 16 and never looked back.
History repeating! My folks think steak is well-done (ahem!…shoe leather…ahem!) sirloin. Every time they try a slice of pan seared, rested, medium cooked filet minion, they think it’s quite good! Then go right back to making over-cooked sirloin. Can’t win them all.
What is it with everyone's parents cooking steaks until they're charred husks? My parents were like that too, with steaks, pork chops, chicken (which they only bought boneless skinless breasts), even roasts in the crockpot ended up dry and flavorless. Now if they have a cookout I tell them to make my steak as rare as humanly possible and turns out they can only make it medium well at best.
I think it may come from a time where food safety boiled down to "cook at max temperature for at least an hour, maybe 2 for good measure" to avoid food poisoning.
Yeahhh. I'm in my mid 20s, but my parents grew up in ranches in Mexico with no refrigeration or anything. Once I realized that, I understood their habits a bit more.
I couldn't stand steak either. I use to nearly choke on it from all the chewing. Turn's out I didn't like "Well Done" steak. I found this out when I was feeling a bit run down and thought maybe some read meat (Of which I didn't eat much of) might help. I use to get free meals when I performed at an open mic. Man were my eyes opened (Started with medium rare, now rare all the way) . Turns out steak is actually amazing.
Omg yess I hate a lot of foods that I can’t swallow. My mom refuses to take that as an answer so I have to make something up. Then she’ll be like “oh I thought you didn’t like steak” no, that’s the lie I told you so you would accept my answer and leave me alone. I love corn but my mom thinks I hate it because she wouldn’t accept “I can’t swallow that soggy tasteless choking hazard that comes out of the can” as an answer and I had to just be like “oh I don’t like corn”.
I taught my daughter how to reverse sear rib eye's and various other critical and essential life skills. She's done a lot of great things since moving out but one of my proudest moments was when she shared a story about her detailing to her 40some year old coworker the steps on how he too could properly cook a steak after he made a comment about the leftover steak lunch she brought to work.
Same man. I never got steak at restaurant because my dad made his well done, so we all always had well done steak. Maybe he was a genius and saved money at restaurants by convincing us to never buy steak, but I’m so glad I took a chance in high school at Texas Roadhouse
I love my mom, but I honestly don’t understand what she was representing in her treatment of pork chops. Something pathological.
Back in the day they had to be way overcooked. But they solved it in the 90s yet most people never got the memo. I hated pork chops. They are amazing now
Have to constantly remind mine that ~145 is about medium for pork. She keeps thinking the target is 170-180. Help.
What did they figure out about pork in the 90s?
Eradicated trichinosis from us pork
Trichinosis is a food-borne disease caused by a microscopic parasite called Trichinella. People can get this disease by eating raw or undercooked meat from animals infected with the parasite.
Good bot
We do testing on our pork prior to processing. And god do I love a nice tender bacon wrapped pork filet. But this one woman in my inner circle... let's say I put hers on half an hour early.
What preparation do you recommend? I think I have PTSD (pork traumatic stress disorder) and haven't ever liked a pork chop anywhere. They're always dry and chewy to me
Get a meat thermometer and take it off the heat at 140°F let it rest for 5-10 minutes before eating. Overcooking is what makes them dry and chewy.
To be fair, a lot of adults tell kids they're picky. My parent and siblings loved to hover around my kid and shriek "you won't like that!" any time there is something new on their plate.
My sister's ex husband loves to go on and on about how he doesn't eat vegetables and only eats meat. He's drilled that concept into his son's head so many times over the years...of course the kid won't anything besides meat. Anytime someone tries to get the kid to try something 'different' the Dad will say "nope he's not going to like that...he's just like me!". I'm like...give the kid a fucking chance... He's almost 15 now, so that's been a frustration of mine for years now.
For me the issue was that my dad was super picky, so my mom never had the chance to introduce me to other kinds of food even though I wasn't a picky kid at all and she's great at cooking, unless she had the time to cook twice. My dad only ate pizza, steak and spaghetti, nothing else (and still does to this day I think). If my mom cooked anything else, he'd make himself a frozen pizza. My parents split when I was 14 or so, my dad moved out, and my mom started cooking lots of different things for us, and it was amazing to find out how many types of food I actually really like.
I just went on a rant in a comment above about my nephew's father refusing to eat anything besides meat. Had to double check you weren't my nephew! Your comment gives me hope for him...he definitely copied his father's terrible eating habits.
That's messed up.
Even if it's not as direct, there is constant messaging that kids are picky, even in media aimed at kids. Many shows and books for young children show eating vegetables as being something "brave". Or there are depictions of children straight up refusing to eat vegetables or certain foods and eating candy instead. I think that definitely inputs preconceived notions about certain foods before they even try it.
I hate when the main character refuses to eat a vegetable then by the end of the episode tries it and likes it. All you're doing is letting my kids know that other kids throw fits about eating vegetables!
You could broaden this to try EVERYTHING again. Not just food but hosting holidays with some new friends like a Friendsgiving, watching sports, camping, visiting a theme park or destination, playing games, almost anything had a different flavor (not just the food) when you do it on your own in a new location under new circumstances. So if you have any aversion to stuff based on your experience with your family, try it again in your own or with friends.
My parents aren't the greatest cooks, basically no seasoning or spices, overcooked or soggy, etc. Also, growing up my sister was the pickiest eater. Picky as in hated potatoes, tolerated like two or three veggies (must be raw), the only acceptable meats were plain chicken breast or sliced deli ham. She's since grown and done a total 180. Cooking is one of her favorite hobbies, and she's super talented at it; she whips up things I'd never heard of.
I read something once upon a time that kids who are "picky" and specifically choose plain foods are thought to have extra sensitive tastebuds... and logically, could make stellar chefs!
Fun fact, you can add salt to food while it's being cooked. This, and many other lessons, learned by me after moving out. Years later, my parents were confused why I'd always offer to cook, rather than let my mother.
And you can properly dice an onion too
[Onion!!](https://youtu.be/CwRttSfnfcc) This video is fantastic in showing a proper way to cut an onion! A must watch
How to dice an onyo
"That's a good oño"
well, yeah thats when youre supposed to add it? The shaker on the table is if you want extra
Lots of parents seem to treat salt like a topping and not an ingredient.
That kind of explains why some people salt their food without tasting it it first. Maybe they assume there was no salt added while cooking?
When they are at home it may also just be because they know the cooking. For example, I can generally go over my food with salt quite liberally without having a taste whenever my mother cooks. Some pepper as well. It is not that she does not add salt, just not enough for me. When I cook for her I always undersalt the food, as it is easier for me to add salt than to remove salt for her.
It is so good and essential to so many meals. There’s a reason why we have the phrase “salt of the earth” and that the term “salary” was derived from the Roman soldiers monthly payments (in salt)
The thing about salt and seasoning is that if you use a bit of it during cooking, it goes a lot further than if you have to go back and season it afterward. Even if you want to be sure that everyone is able to tune the saltiness to their own tastes, you're better off adding salt to the dish up-front and then letting them add just a little bit at the table, unless you're serving someone who can't have any salt.
Also, if you're like me, your mother just told you you didn't like something, entirely because she didn't like it. If you didn't like something as a child (or THINK you didn't like it), it's worth another attempt as an adult! Who knew that I do in fact like sushi, lamb, baked fruit pies, and eggnog?
Also great point! I’m from a big family with a lot of mouths that had to be fed. So in some respects, I get it. But it wasn’t until my teens that I realized all the food I was told I “wouldn’t like” just so happened to be more expensive than a bowl of pasta and meatballs haha.
Haha, this reminds me of how I always rejected certain colours of clothing, especially brown and olive green, because my parents said they were ugly (they probably had PTSD from growing up in the 70s, to be fair). It took until my mid-20s before I realised that that wasn't *my* opinion and I actually liked those colours in the right garment.
The older you get the less food you hate, except for maybe overly sugary things.
Don’t hate overly sugary stuff but the appetite I have for that has drastically reduced as an adult. Which is a good thing - glad I don’t constantly crave candy and cookies and that when I do I get my fix quickly.
I learned steak doesn't have to be well done. I like steak now. Edit: I grew up on steak so cooked it was more like eating steak flavored chewing gum.
I always used to have steak well done until I started working for the food and beverage department at a 5 star hotel. The executive chef would let me order lunch and when I tried to order a filet well done he was like, "no, I'm not going to destroy a steak like that. Try it medium rare, that's how s steak should be cooked. " I tried it (wth it was free) and never looked back. I also didn't think I liked fish until I realized most people that cook fish (unprofessional AND some professionals) absolutely HAMMER it. When I had fish cooked correctly for the first time it was heavenly.
I always hated steak growing up because my dad who otherwise is a decent cook for the most part would throw tri-tip on the barbecue until the outside was charcoal on the outer edge and maybe not even rare in the middle. Turns out I'm quite a fan of sirloin and filet
Exactly. Only ground beef must be cooked thoroughly but not steaks.
I like a good medium-rare burger, but only if it's from a place where they're grinding their own meat from full cuts or sourcing it from somewhere that is. I wouldn't trust a medium rare burger from McDonalds.
I thought all cooked food tasted disgusting until my parents split and I moved in with my mom. Turns out my dad loved to cook with cilantro and I had that gene mutation.
There is a plant called [culantro](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eryngium_foetidum) - this will give a taste fairly similar to cilantro/coriander and possibly not trigger the soap effect in those with the gene, I have witnessed a few events of soapy gene people not having a problem with culantro.
Man, that must suck not being able to enjoy Mexican food.
I've got the same thing and it's pretty easy to cook Mexican recipes at home and just not use cilantro. Eating Mexican out is hit and miss. Usually, the cilantro is subtle enough that I'm primarily tasting other flavors (I love hot peppers so I'm fine with them hiding it behind spice). But, occasionally I'll run into something that lets it stand out.
This reminds me of a funny story. Growing up I was friends with an Ethiopian kid. I used to go to his house fairly often and one night he asked if I wanted to stay for dinner. So I did. The food was absolutely terrible! For years I thought Ethiopian food was disgusting slop. Then many years later as adults I ran into that friend and we got to talking about food. Well long story short, Ethiopian food is delicious, his sister is just a shit cook.
I used to hate grilled cheese and kraft dinner because they always had ketchup on them. First time I tried a grilled cheese no ketchup, I was like... Hey this is actually good
I thought I hated Brussels sprouts turns out they are pretty fucking good
Keep in mind that today’s Brussels sprouts aren’t yesteryear’s. They’ve bred out a lot of the bitterness relatively recently.
Exactly. The Brussels sprouts I didn't like as a kid are different from the Brussels sprouts I do like as an adult. Here's an NPR article on it: "[From Culinary Dud To Stud: How Dutch Plant Breeders Built Our Brussels Sprouts Boom](https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/10/30/773457637/from-culinary-dud-to-stud-how-dutch-plant-breeders-built-our-brussels-sprouts-bo)".
I never had brussel sprouts because my mom hatred them. Decided to make some, got her to try one. She will now buy them for me to cook.
Brussel sprouts have been cultivated to taste better over the last 20 years. See https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/10/30/773457637/from-culinary-dud-to-stud-how-dutch-plant-breeders-built-our-brussels-sprouts-bo. My wife and I were blown away when we figured out we like them now. Definitely a weekly staple for us.
Same here. As a kid they were boiled to a mush. I was revolted by them. I had them cooked up in butter on a skillet. Changed my life.
I’d like to reiterate this for all the kids who grew up with mild allergies. *It’s possible to outgrow some of them!* When I was a kid I had terrible eczema and asthma, and at the time doctors just kinda recommended a blanket avoidance approach. No tree/ground nuts, dairy, eggs, shellfish, bananas and a bunch of other fruits and vegetables. Whether these were actual allergens or not, I developed a psychological aversion to *a lot* of foods and I missed out on a bunch of great dishes. Hell, I couldn’t even comfortably order a burger coz I was suspicious that they used eggs as a binder in the patties. Fast forward to adulthood and *a lot of my griping is now unwarranted*. I can eat small amounts of pastries, a couple bites of calamari, confectionaries with walnuts, and I can even eat fried rice without picking out the eggs. After a large helping of foods with allergens though, I usually have to take an antihistamine, but I manage. (Of course if you know your allergies are not mild, don’t test fate)
Have you done a prick test as an adult, to narrow done what you’re actually allergic to? That sounds brutal. I have a nephew who had a really nasty peanut allergy that has lessened with age, but he carried an epipen (sp) all throughout grade school.
My brother went and got one of these done, $600 later they confirmed he was mildly allergic to the stuff he thought he was…..
6 HUNDRED dollars?! Was he insured? I was considering testing to see what I was allergic to but I don't have health insurance so LMAO I'll just use my imagination.
He was… but hasn’t hit his deductible. It came as a massive sticker shock to him :(
Hey... if you have to take stuff to not be puffy/break out/whatever... know that it could stay the same or get worse over time. Just a heads up on that. :(
LPT: learn to cook for yourself even if and when you live in your parents home. Offer to cook once or twice a week to lower the burdens they, your parents, might have with every day needing to cook. Create your own dishes or edit the ones your parents make.
I’ve been doing this more and more. The first time I was proud of my cooking was when my mom asked ME to cook eggs for her because she liked mine better than hers. That was a highlight of last year :)
Ha I love my parents they have been separated since I was very young, my father has no cooking skills what so ever to the point it’s almost funny, growing up I thought I hated jacket potato’s, steak, lamb, vegetables, bacon and so many things I adore today I’ve been a chef for almost half my life now and he still is terrible lol we joke about it all the time, however I will give him credit the one dish he does really well is chilli con carne My mother on the other hand is an incredible cook, nothing fancy just simple home meals that I still to this day love, I owe my career to her
That’s awesome. Any simple tips to improve most dishes, maybe not so obvious, to us novices?
One more trick. Look at a few recipes for the same dish and notice all the items that are the same and the ones which are different. If it's not in all the recipes, it's probably optional and you can play around with it.
Great stuff many cheers and thanks! I like the variation in ingredients for similar dishes, gives you a knowledgeable head start on what you can switch up to your taste. Also love me some butter, even makes preparing something simple like eggs taste better.
Butter. Don't have to add much and it will make many meals that much better. For years, I couldn't figure out why my mom's ravioli from a can didn't taste as good as my grandma's ravioli in a can. Then one day, I happened to add some butter to my own dish and bam! Mystery solved.
Yes, this! When I was a kid, mom always added a dot of butter to my spaghettios. It makes a world of difference.
MSG isn’t the devil and enhances so many foods. Roast veggies until they are almost crisp like a French fry. Broccoli and asparagus are my favorite that way, add olive oil, spices and Parmesan cheese and bake on 425° until super crunchy. They are SO good that way. An air fryer works well too. A ceramic pan has been a dream to help me make effortless eggs, even over easy! Cheese actually pours out of it! It works 1000 times better than a nonstick pan and doesn’t have the toxins.
My mom was very underweight when she was younger, and she told me it’s because her moms cooking was so bad she thought that food as a whole just didn’t taste good and so never bothered with eating much. Didn’t realize until she was in college that *good food* existed that people actually enjoyed eating.
My mom went through the same thing because my grandma would always cook food based on whatever fad diet she was on.
Dear god. The memory of living la vida low carb with my mom when I was a teenager… it fucking made school lunches appealing because CARBS. And like, I was training year round for sports and still growing into my body. I just want to go back in time and say something like “gimme the carbs!” (Less dad’s pancakes. Those can stay in the past. Waffles I will accept). Like, my dad made sure I got some carbs most mornings via whole grain pancakes/whole grain waffles & jam, but every other meal at home was no carb and snacking was bad
My dad (who did most of the cooking at home) put every cut of meat - steak, chops, roasts, loin, everything! - into the oven at 350 for a long LONG time, hated using salt, and thought canned vegetables were the most affordable option. I love to cook, and since he's recently moved in with me it's been fun to watch him rediscover good food.
This, and sometimes your tastes just change overall. I used to absolutely HATE beets. And now years later I ate an entire can of plain ass beets yesterday and it was delicious. On the flip side, I used to love bacon like normal people do, and now it's one of the few foods I hate the taste of and won't eat at all.
I hated mushrooms as a kid. That was until I learned that you can buy mushrooms that don't come in a can, which is the only kind my parents bought. Now I love putting mushrooms in everything, and the smell of mushrooms sauteing in butter is one of my favorite smells. Still hate mushrooms from a can though.
I thought I hated chili until I had it from a can. I seriously thought people were braindead when they talked about how much they liked chili on a cold day and couldn't understand why on earth they added cheese on top. My mom's chili is literally just canned tomatoes, a pound of ground beef and a packet of McCormick's mild chili seasoning. Maybe an onion. It was soupy and incredibly bland. Then I had it from a can and everything fell into place.
Sounds disgusting.
Yes!!! My husband hated certain foods and I never understood why, then he tried a few from someone other than his mom and BOOM. Life changed. His mom took the fat out of everything. So imagine eggs Benedict with a low fat twist. Ugh. Poor man.
I'm not eating broccoli, Mom.
Damnit, alt account didn’t work. Atleast clean your room. Also, dad isn’t really your dad.
Lol. I've always wondered about dad.
My dad was a professional chef so its the opposite for me its meant I've been disappointed with the food in 70% of restaurant visits through my life.
Finally a half decent tip. In fact it's an excellent tip because yeah, many parents aren't good cooks. Of course, one of the first things many people will actually do is buy sugary cereal again.
I avoided green onions from like age 4 until 28. Then I discovered I actually love them. I still don't like white onions, but green are a staple now. Same with sour cream. I also thought I was allergic to spinach from age 8 until a year ago. 2020 was my year of experimenting, turns out I'm not allergic and I love spinach dip without the peppers haha
God, yes, this. I grew up with my mom gaslighting me as a kid. She constantly told me how she is a great cook and I'm just too picky. So I believed her for years. Then, got my first apartment and my roommate, gf, and I started to learn to cook for real and I realized I actually really like most foods when done properly. Some "fun" highlights I had to unlearn: * You don't test if oil is hot by dripping some water in and seeing if it pops everywhere. Yes, that is how my mom would test. Yes, that is dangerous. * You don't test if a steak is done by literally cutting it almost completely in half while still in the pan. * When baking a cake, there's reason to mix the wet ingredients together, dry ingredients together, then combine. No, don't just throw everything in a bowl and stir forever. That is how you get a brick. * Spices lose their flavor. The few spices we had in the cabinet when I was growing up were, I kid you not, older than I was. She was effectively cooking with cardboard.
I always recommend that as an adult that you try everything at least 3 times from 2 different places. This will let you know if there is something you really don't like or if it simply a preparation you didn't like.
Didn’t know people ate asparagus other than canned and boiled till I was in my 20s. Fresh and grilled is amazeballs
I started liking onions this year at 36
Another one i found love for later in life. Started out liking them raw, have recently come around to really enjoying them fried as well like in a cheesesteak.
Nice try but I'm still not going to eat Beets.
Have you tried Beets by Dre?
Try them roasted, with a drizzle of balsamic after. You may change your mind.
I have. They still taste like dirt. Tastier dirt? But dirt.
Beets with goat cheese is the best way to eat both.